media

Aleks Krotoski
Originally published in The Telegraph
Wednesday 18 November 2009

It’s been a few years since anyone has raised the uncomfortable idea that the World Wide Web is not and never will be the global bear hug that its West Coast liberal forefathers and mothers dreamt it would become. They thought the Web, with its open access, decentralised architecture and real world-virtual world crossover would bring about a crazy utopia: it would eradicate race, disability and gender stereotypes. People of different religions, colours and creeds would hold hands, sing kumbaya and our global consciousness would ascend to the next chakra. Or something like that.

For eagle-eyed readers of my contributions to The Guardian’s Game Theory column and my gamesblog posts over the past few years, it may come as no surprise that, upon my return to The Guardian after Digital Revolution production is over, I am moving on from games coverage to technological pastures wider. I have been skirting around the mainstream games industry news for a long time, writing more about play than PlayStation, more about the Web than the Wii, and more about creative uses of technology than controllers. Although I am still passionate about the extraordinary joy and power that fun can produce, it’s time for me to cover another area of interactivity. I’m looking forward to treading new ground with The Guardian, the details of which will be unveiled soon. However, with the sanction of the gamesbloggers, I may throw a few games-related posts on their blog if the story is suitable.

Some detractors argue that the Web is changing our neuronal physiology, actually re-wiring our brains in a way that is dangerous and detrimental to our development. Others suggest that the Web is in fact helping us to utilise our brains more efficiently, making us proverbial ‘foxes’ rather than ‘hedgehogs’ (in the metaphorical parlance of Isaiah Berlin) – able to quickly gather lots of information from lots of sources rather than viewing the world through a single idea.

Over the past 14 weeks, Digital Revolution has placed me in front of some of the most important protagonists in the Web’s 20 year story: the founding fathers and mothers, the movers and the shakers, the newsmakers and the naysayers. I’ve had the unparalleled opportunity to interview every one, often for more than an hour. Like I’ve died and gone to post-PhD heaven, I tell you.

One of the results of my recent interview with British comedian, author, actor and all around polymath Stephen Fry for the four-part BBCDigital Revolution series was a little video in which we tried on several of the titles the production team is trying on for size. Have a look. Several people on Twitter think we should have scones and cups of tea.

Tim Berners-Lee turned his ubiquitous Flip camera on me for a few minutes between takes when I was interviewing him for the BBC’s Digital Revolution programme in Abiriw, Ghana. If you want to find out what I really think about the revolutionary power of the Web, and what humans are doing to this phenomenal tabula rasa, view on:

I had an extraordinary time in Ghana with programme 1 of Digital Revolution, travelling around with Sir Tim Berners-Lee. Apart from hanging out with Timbl, the most exciting aspect was meeting people in Abiriw, in the mountains outside Accra, and speaking with them about how they use the web.

I recorded this vlog for the BBC DigRev blog about my impressions of this superb journey: